The Agony of Being Theresa May

Hosted by Michael Barbaro, produced by Theo Balcomb, Lynsea Garrison and Annie Brown, and edited by Lisa Tobin

In a last-ditch effort to fulfill her promise of delivering Brexit, Britain’s prime minister dangled a final sacrifice.

Monday, April 1st, 2019

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today, after months of trying and failing to put forward a deal for how the U.K. could leave the European Union, Theresa May had one final thing to offer: herself. It’s Monday, April 1.

automated attendant

Thank you for calling the London office of The New York Times.

ellen barry

Hello?

michael barbaro

Oh, hello. How are you, Ellen?

ellen barry

I’m great.

michael barbaro

I’m so sorry that we’ve had technical difficulties this morning.

ellen barry

Not to worry.

michael barbaro

It wouldn’t be “The Daily” if we didn’t have a little technical difficulty. O.K., so here we go, Ellen. Tell me when you are ready.

ellen barry

Ready.

michael barbaro

O.K. Ellen Barry is a Times correspondent in London.

ellen barry

So last Wednesday, in the middle of the day, Theresa May called her party members to Committee Room 14, which is a big committee room somewhere in the bowels of Westminster Palace. It was quite unclear what this was about. There was loads of speculation that she would perhaps fire her chief negotiator for Brexit, who is widely despised by right-wingers in her party.

archived recording

The world’s cameras are trained on the British Parliament, waiting for a Brexit breakthrough. For many, the workings of this House appear increasingly mystifying. But after months of Brexit paralysis, could things be starting to move?

ellen barry

So at five o’clock, Conservative lawmakers began crowding into this room. And it was, by all accounts, stifling and completely packed. The minister for international development couldn’t even get in there and was watching through the keyhole. And it is traditional in these gatherings that when the prime minister comes in, people bang on the tables with their hands. It’s kind of like a tribal drumbeat. And so then, the room went silent. The door closed. The room went silent. And what was said in there was said only to each other. But meetings like this leak like sieves. And —

archived recording

In a closed meeting with conservative M.P.s, Theresa May said she’s prepared to make the ultimate move.

ellen barry

Gradually, the outside world came to know that the thing that she was prepared to offer in exchange for their votes was herself.

archived recording

She concluded by asking everyone in the room to back her deal to allow for a smooth and orderly Brexit.

ellen barry

She basically said, I’ll make you a deal. If you vote for this, if you vote for the withdrawal agreement and get it through, then I will step down as prime minister.

michael barbaro

Brexit for my head.

ellen barry

Basically.

michael barbaro

Ellen, how did all of this happen? How did Theresa may end up being at the center of Brexit?

ellen barry

So the funny thing is that Brexit was never Theresa May’s issue. She kind of kept her head down, but she was a Remainer. She voted to stay inside the European Union and really just stayed out of the whole public debate over Brexit, to a great extent. And it was really somewhat by accident that she became prime minister.

archived recording

David Cameron is back in Downing Street, a happy man after a surprise election victory. Against most predictions, his party has won a slim but outright majority.

ellen barry

It started with David Cameron, who was basically hoping to stop a hemorrhage of M.P.s from switching sides and going to UKIP, which was the Brexit party.

archived recording (david cameron)

We will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice.

ellen barry

And he made a gamble.

archived recording (david cameron)

To stay in the European Union on these new terms or to come out altogether. It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time for us to settle this question about Britain and Europe.

ellen barry

It was essentially to kind of assuage the hard right of his party. He thought he could essentially throw them a bone and get them onside. And he did so expecting that the country would vote to remain. And it just came as a staggering surprise on June 23rd of 2016 when the results came out. And it was 52 to 48 percent for leaving the European Union.

archived recording (david cameron)

The British people have voted to leave the European Union. And their will must be respected.

ellen barry

And because David Cameron had been squarely opposed to leaving the European Union, he then announced that he was going to step down as prime minister, rather than lead the country through the process of leaving.

archived recording (david cameron)

I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction. I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months. But I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.

michael barbaro

So why does Theresa May end up taking his place, if she had been a Remainer — if she’d been opposed to Brexit?

ellen barry

So Theresa May ended up taking his place because the men who were the obvious front-runners to be his successors took each other out in the political fistfight that followed. And I suppose she was appealing in a sense that she was quite different from all of those top Tory men. There’s a phrase they use at Balliol College, which is “the tranquil assurance of effortless superiority.”

archived recording (theresa may)

Some people would say, sometimes, life as a vicar’s daughter isn’t — it can have its ups and downs.

ellen barry

Theresa May is nothing like that — I mean, not on any level.

archived recording (theresa may)

But I feel hugely privileged, actually, in the childhood that I had.

ellen barry

She was the daughter of a small-town vicar, and the granddaughter of two lady’s maids, and the great-granddaughter of a butler. So she came from a family with a really long sense of public service and duty.

Well, nobody’s ever perfectly behaved, are they? I have to confess when me and my friends used to run through the fields of wheat, the farmers weren’t too pleased about that.

ellen barry

So she seemed like one of the grown-ups in the room, at the time. Someone who could potentially bring the country back together after an incredibly difficult and divisive referendum campaign.

michael barbaro

So the men who create Brexit essentially self-immolate. And the party turns to Theresa May.

ellen barry

Yes. She cast herself as someone who was trying to do the least damage. I mean, instead of projecting enthusiasm about the mission of Brexit, she tended to express a sense of duty that she had taken on the job. She was going to finish the job.

archived recording (theresa may)

We are living through an important moment in our country’s history. Following the referendum, we face a time of great national change. And I know, because we are Great Britain, that we will rise to the challenge.

ellen barry

But it didn’t take long for her to start making serious blunders around Brexit, because it turned out that she is one of the worst retail politicians that Britain has ever seen.

archived recording (theresa may)

I know that the public sector has had to carry a heavy burden. The private sector has played its part, too. But with government, businesses and the public sector working together, we have bounced back.

ellen barry

She is wooden. She is unable to speak off-script. She cannot generate warmth. She seems congenitally unable to generate warmth.

archived recording (theresa may)

Brexit means Brexit. And we are going to make a success of it.

ellen barry

She went out on the stump and repeated, kind of robotically —

archived recording (theresa may)

Brexit means Brexit.

ellen barry

— a set of phrases that she had been briefed on.

archived recording (theresa may)

Because Brexit means Brexit.

ellen barry

And she earned the nickname the “Maybot,” because she was seemingly unable to come up with different answers, even when the same question was asked her repeatedly.

archived recording (theresa may)

Well, the reason I’ve been saying Brexit means Brexit is precisely because it does. And to be very clear —

archived recording

This is what history looks like. The official letter formally starting the process of Britain leaving the European Union is delivered.

ellen barry

So she made a series of very significant blunders that year. One of them, maybe the most important one, is that she triggered Article 50.

archived recording (theresa may)

The Article 50 process is now underway. And in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.

ellen barry

Which started the clock ticking towards an end date — an exit date of March 29.

archived recording (theresa may)

This is an historic moment, from which there can be no turning back. Britain is leaving the European Union. We are going to make our own decisions and our own laws.

ellen barry

As soon as she started that, the E.U. had an enormous advantage in the negotiations.

archived recording (theresa may)

This is a decisive step, which enables us to move on and finalize the deal in the days ahead. These decisions were not taken lightly. But I believe it is a decision that is firmly in the national interest.

ellen barry

She also, as a general matter, played her cards incredibly close to her vest throughout the negotiation. So the country really didn’t know where she was going with this process until quite late last year, when she shared her withdrawal agreement with the country.

archived recording (theresa may)

When you strip away the detail, the choice before us is clear: this deal, which delivers on the vote of the referendum, which brings about control of our money, laws and borders, ends free movement, protects jobs, security and our union, or leave with no deal, or no Brexit at all.

ellen barry

And it went over like a lead balloon.

michael barbaro

And why was that?

ellen barry

Well, she laid out a series of red lines that were, in fact, very hard Brexit red lines. No one knew, up until that point, that she was planning to exit the customs union and the single market.

archived recording (theresa may)

And because we will no longer be members of the single market, we will not be required to contribute huge sums to the E.U. budget. The days of Britain making vast contributions to the European Union every year will end.

michael barbaro

And why is that, ultimately, a blunder?

ellen barry

Well, they had no solution for what would turn out to be the fatal problem with that plan, which is Britain is not an island. There is a land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. And you cannot just walk away from the customs union without creating some kind of a border. And of course, that open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic had been the subject of a 30-year armed struggle and a hard-fought peace agreement. So to gloss over it was not looking at the problem, which was going to block this thing at the end.

archived recording (theresa may)

The choices before us were difficult, particularly in relation to the Northern Ireland backstop.

ellen barry

But the way she squared the circle with the Irish border is to create something called the backstop. And what the backstop means is that the entire of the U.K. would remain in the customs union until such a time that there is a solution to the border problem, which could easily be never. And this is why she lost her Brexiteers. Because they said, well, this is just a way for us to stay in the European Union, subject to their regulations, indefinitely, because there is no provision for the United Kingdom leaving the backstop unilaterally. So they just saw themselves as being stuck at the mercy of Europe indefinitely.

michael barbaro

Wow, that’s the first time I understood the backstop. Thank you.

archived recording 1

The fact is that her deal isn’t really a deal. Because what it actually does is postpone everything. It doesn’t settle anything. It actually guarantees more uncertainty, which is terrible for business. And it’s not even Brexit.

archived recording 2

It is not Brexit at all. And they’re pretending that it is.

ellen barry

So what she begins to do is try to persuade the country to compromise. But it is extremely late in the game. And she hasn’t laid the groundwork for a compromise. Much of her energy went to keeping the hardliners onside. And as soon as she published her withdrawal agreement, she lost them.

archived recording

Theresa May still believes there’s a battle to be won in Brussels. A growing number of British M.P.s don’t. The view from Europe is of a nation increasingly at odds with itself.

michael barbaro

And how does may respond to all these condemnations and men who are essentially beating her up?

ellen barry

This is such an irritating, maddening group of people that — I don’t know. A lot of Britons, during this period, their heart went out to her. Because any normal person would just throw their hands up and walk away from this nightmare of a job. But she’d just wake up in the morning and dust herself off and set aside her personal feelings and say —

archived recording (theresa may)

I believe with every fiber of my being that the course I have set out is the right one for our country and all our people.

ellen barry

— again and again —

archived recording (theresa may)

From the very beginning, I have known what I wanted to deliver for the British people to honor their vote in the referendum.

ellen barry

— I have committed to delivering Brexit to the British people.

archived recording (theresa may)

The British people just want us to get on with it. They are looking to the Conservative Party to deliver — to deliver a Brexit that works for the whole U.K.

ellen barry

And that’s what I’m going to do.

archived recording (theresa may)

I’m going to do my job of getting the best deal for Britain. I’m going to do my job of getting a deal that is in the national interest.

ellen barry

She stuck with it, and she stuck with it. And she seemed unwilling to give up.

archived recording (theresa may)

And am I going to see this through? Yes.

[music]

ellen barry

Until last week.

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So bring us back to this Committee Room number 14. What do we know about what Theresa May said as she offered her own head to members of the Conservative Party as this final gesture?

ellen barry

This was the way it was described by George Freeman, who was her former policy adviser. “She, with tears not far from her eyes, said, ‘I promised I would deliver the Brexit agreement.’” She said, “I’ve made many mistakes. I’m only human. I beg you, colleagues, vote for the withdrawal agreement. And I will go.” He said there was silence in the room. And it was incredibly sad.

[music]

ellen barry

After she finished speaking in this committee room, there were several M.P.s who were hardline, holdout Brexiteers who got up and said, publicly, that they were now going to back her deal.

michael barbaro

Wow, so this seems to be working?

ellen barry

Yes. For the next 45 minutes to an hour, journalists were on Twitter just counting the number of Brexiteers that were changing sides. And you had people like Boris Johnson, who — I think he had compared her deal to a suicide vest at one point. This is what he said to The Daily Telegraph: “I feel very, very sorry. And though it fills me with pain, I’m going to have to support this thing.” So he flipped sides. Jacob Rees-Mogg, another Brexiteer bannerman, tweeted out that “half a loaf is better than no bread.” In other words, he was willing to give up some of his Brexiteer credibility to get behind Theresa May and give her his vote. And you just began to see this happening again and again. They were flipping. And I think it got up to something like 30 or 40 people were indicating that they were changing sides. And it looked, somehow, that at this last moment, in this last Hail Mary pass that she had thrown by offering her resignation, she might have just gotten it over the line.

archived recording (john bercow)

Order. Order.

ellen barry

But sometime after 3 o’clock on Friday, March 29 —

archived recording (john bercow)

The ayes to the right, 286. The noes to the left, 344. So the noes have it. The noes have it.

ellen barry

Parliament rejected her withdrawal agreement for the third time by a vote of 344 to 286.

michael barbaro

So she just fell short?

ellen barry

Yeah, she fell short.

archived recording (john bercow)

Point of order. The prime minister.

archived recording (theresa may)

Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think it should be a matter of profound regret to every member of this House that, once again, we have been unable to support leaving the European Union in orderly fashion. The implications of the House’s decision are grave.

michael barbaro

So this offer to give up her own prime ministership in exchange for Brexit — essentially, Parliament said to her, not even that is enough.

ellen barry

It wasn’t enough.

archived recording

Good evening from Westminster. If the prime minister had had her way, the United Kingdom would be leaving the E.U. in one hour’s time. Today should have been Brexit Day. That’s what Theresa May had promised. But instead, she —

ellen barry

And this is the absurd trap that we’ve all been in — that here is an impossible task that doesn’t get done and doesn’t get done. And yet nothing changes. There’s no off-ramp. And so Brexit still isn’t done. And Theresa May’s still the person in charge of it. You imagine that she was ready to walk away. And you could see it on her face. She looked like a different person. She looked younger. She looked — I don’t know. She just didn’t look strained anymore. But actually, she’s not free. It’s not done. And she’s going to have to start all over again, in the morning.

michael barbaro

Ellen, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

ellen barry

Thank you.

[music]

michael barbaro

Here’s what else you need to know, today.

archived recording (donald trump)

I’ve ended payments to Guatemala, to Honduras and to El Salvador. No money goes there anymore.

michael barbaro

Over the weekend, the Trump Administration said it would drastically cut financial aid to three Central American countries in retaliation for what he said was their failure to stop the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.

archived recording (donald trump)

We were paying them tremendous amounts of money. And we’re not paying them anymore. Because they haven’t done a thing for us.

michael barbaro

The $500 million in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras was originally designed to address the root cause of migration — violence, lack of jobs and poverty. And its elimination could ultimately backfire, triggering even more migration to the U.S. And New York will become the first city in the country to charge drivers for using its streets, in an attempt to reduce congestion and raise money to repair its subway system.

archived recording (andrew cuomo)

You have to get fewer cars driving into Manhattan. The traffic is so bad. I can’t tell you how many days, myself, I just get out of the car and walk. Because it’s so much faster.

michael barbaro

Under a plan adopted by Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature on Sunday, drivers will be charged a fee of at least $10 to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan.

archived recording (andrew cuomo)

Buses in Manhattan, I think the average is now down to, like, four miles per hour.

michael barbaro

The fees, known as congestion pricing, are already in use in London, Stockholm and Singapore, where they have cut both traffic and air pollution. In New York, they are expected to raise $1 billion a year for the city’s subway system.

archived recording (andrew cuomo)

And it’s a little bit of a chicken and an egg. You need a viable, functioning mass transit system so people get out of their cars and feel comfortable taking the mass transit system. And that’s the point behind congestion pricing.

Ellen Barry, chief international correspondent for The New York Times.

Image

Prime Minister Theresa May, third from left, spent months negotiating a Brexit deal that was struck down for a third time by Parliament on Friday, the day that Britain was originally scheduled to leave the European Union.CreditMark Duffy/UK Parliament, via Reuters